Researchers develop “imaginary meal” pill

     An “imaginary meal” pill called fexaramine has been developed by researchers at the Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory. It has the ability to prevent weight gain, lower cholesterol, control blood sugar, and minimise inflammation in mice, with plans for human trials to begin shortly.

The pill works by making the body believe it has consumed calories, causing it to respond by burning fat. Behaving in a different manner to other “diet pills”, it remains in the intestines and results in fewer side effects. Ronald Evans, director of Salk’s, suggested that the pill can also have important health benefits, tackling obesity and being potentially crucial in aiding the treatment of diabetes. 

Salk researchers have developed an entirely new type of pill thattricks the body into thinking it has consumed calories, causing it to burn fat. The compound effectively stopped weight gain, lowered cholesterol, controlled blood sugar and minimized inflammation in mice, making it an excellent candidate for a rapid transition into human clinical trials.

Unlike most diet pills on the market, this new pill, called fexaramine, doesn’t dissolve into the blood like appetite suppressants or caffeine-based diet drugs, but remains in the intestines, causing fewer side effects.

“This pill is like an imaginary meal,” says Ronald Evans, director of Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and senior author of the new paper, published January 5, 2015 in Nature Medicine. “It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food, so the body starts clearing out space to store it. But there are no calories and no change in appetite.”

In the United States, more than a third of adults are obese and 29.1 million people have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both obesity and diabetes lead to an increase in health spending, a greater risk of health complications and a shorter lifespan.

Researchers at the Salk Institute have developed a fat-burning compound called fexaramine that leads to weight loss without typical side effects in animal models. Fexaramine tricks the body into reacting as if it has consumed calories and could lead to an effective treatment for type 2 diabetes and obesity in humans.

When the group gave obese mice a daily pill of fexaramine for five weeks, the mice stopped gaining weight, lost fat and had lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels than untreated mice. In addition, the mice had a rise in body temperature–which signals their metabolism rate increasing–and some deposits of white fat in their bodies converted into a healthier, energy-burning beige form of the tissue. Even the collection of bacteria in the guts of mice shifted when they received the drug, although what those changes mean isn’t clear yet.

If this miracle pill proves to work without harmful side effects, it could mean a significant change for those with potentially fatal obesity, chronic diabetes and other related illnesses. Since the drug has shown such great results in a short time in the mice without significant side effects, the scientists at Salk believe that it is safe to start the trials with human beings as well.                                                                                                     -                                                        sarika